Then There Was One
by silverfox2702
Summary: The war doesn't end, it just gets smaller and smaller as it moves on. Post-war fic, Lavi-centric followed by Kanda.


Disclaimer: Don't own D. Gray-Man. Making no money off of this.

Notes: Written for the amazing Jaya Mitai who is is a prepackaged food product that writes my name in the Death Note =)

-x-

They stumble-li_mp_-_fall_ awkwardly through the ruined halls of the Order, his weight hanging unevenly off Kanda's shoulders, but Kanda bears it with no more ill grace than he has anything else in this last month and a half, and Lavi is grateful for the other's silence. They reach the library, remarkably intact, as if in some kind of testimony to the nature of history, and Lavi shifts his weight from Kanda to the door to push it open and does not think of what the situation also symbolizes in regard to the nature of the people who make and record that history.

The large, polished wood desk is still where it always was behind the piles of scattered newspapers on the ground and in front of the towering shelves of books, and they make their way to it through the minefield of past skeletons littering the floor so that Lavi can sag exhaustedly onto the padded leather cushion of the armchair behind it. He sits there for a moment, feeling the cooling air on his hands, watching the way the last bits of daylight stream halfheartedly through the tattered curtains, tasting the acrid scent of rubble and Akuma gas still tainting the air. Then he reaches for the bottom left drawer and does not lose his balance, unused to its new center; does not suck in air so hard that it squeezes his lungs and sounds like a wheezed sob when his palm lands on the leather of the cushion where a knee and leg had been, tangling in empty cloth; does not see Kanda give a flicker of movement as if he wanted to help; and removes a handsome leather-bound journal from the top of a stack of papers. There's a twinge in his gut, raw and empty as he opens the cover, which he also ignores, but it's harder to not see that his hand is shaking as it reaches for a pen from the holder.

"This is so unorthodox," he says, more to himself than to Kanda, and his voice comes out thin and dry.

"Should I leave?" Kanda's voice is quiet, solemn, respectful, and Lavi is uncharacteristically irritated by it as much as he is grateful.

"No," he says hoarsely after a moment. And then clearing his throat, louder, "No." Dropping his gaze, he hesitated for a moment, then continued. "Could you pick up those papers over there for me? The order doesn't matter, I just…need them for referencing."

There's a rustle as Kanda moves towards the papers, his boots snagging others along the way, and Lavi keeps his bangs in his face as he turns to the next clean page and begins where his master's handwriting leaves off.

He had been trained for this moment, but he had never dreamed of it. It was too much, too confusing, too long and too short. Too fast.

Too little.

_It's hard, Gramps_, he thought, as the pen touched paper and habit and training trimmed away stray thoughts and pushed the unbiased words of his account from his mind through his arm to the paper.

He did not think about his master, or what Lavi had seen, or how this might be the last and only record he might make as a Bookman.

This was what a Bookman had seen, and so it would be written.

-x-

The Exorcists that remained were still being sent out on missions. The Earl and his Noah had been defeated, and what remained of the Noah clan had no memories beyond right before they had Awakened, but Akuma still roamed the world, still evolved, and Lavi knew that more than one of them present still had nightmares about the cryptic smile the Earl had flashed them moments before he'd been sealed away.

Lavi noticed that Kanda was around more often than he would have expected. While the others, even Allen, who was now deemed less of a threat with the Fourteenth silenced, and whose abilities were sorely needed in the field, were away for longer periods of time than they had been even before or during the war in an attempt to cut off the remaining Akuma where they were before they could spread, Kanda, oddly, was never far from calling distance, and several times Lavi had even been surprised to find Kanda organizing the books in the library. It settled into a strange kind of routine even as he watched Kanda become jumpier and more irritated as the days went by and the Japanese man remained caged in the Order with him. Lavi would write out the list of books he needed or the books he needed boxed and taken to the docks for the representatives from the Bookman Clan to pick up, and Kanda would silently collect the volumes he needed and place them within reach or package them. It was slower than it would have been before, with two of them that knew what they were doing, but faster than if he tried to do it alone now.

He wondered about it, if there was a reason more than the obvious that Kanda out of all of them was the one chosen for his guard and nursemaid, but what energy, physical and emotional, that he had to spare after impartially recreating and documenting the events of the last half year was barely enough for him to tear the ruined pages from the spine of the journals at the end of each day. And then it happened so suddenly, even as it had been building up silently behind him, that he did not recognize what had happened until after it had happened, and the details of the time and place of each of the events that made up the second great war told him nothing at all.

He'd been writing, almost to the part where Miranda had been fighting Tyki Mikk; Kanda was shelving and there was a knock on the door before Lenalee entered with a tray of food. He noted the nervous way she smiled at him, nervous at herself, and he tries to smile back, but he's not sure what expression actually made it onto his face. The pause that he's become so familiar with these past weeks stretches between them; Kanda moves in front of him to drop a book onto the stack on the desk, cutting through the stillness before with a surprised curse, he dropped the book he was holding, the sound sudden and final and loud, and rushed out of the room, hand clutching at his chest. There's something panicked and betrayed and lost about Kanda's expression, and Lavi finds himself rising before he remembers he can't.

He loses his balance again and Lenalee catches him, all awkwardness gone as he reaches for the crutches leaning against the desk and Lenalee simply half lifts him and sets him in the chair he's avoided using so far, and he doesn't remember to protest until she's pushed him out of the room, but he sees the look on her face and thinks of the look on Kanda's face and decides not to.

The door to Kanda's room is open, gaping on its hinges from too much force. Kanda is on his knees on the floor, still and unmoving, hand still pressed to his chest, eyes open and staring, shocked but dull and unsurprised at the bare lotus flower that now sits on his nightstand.

Lenalee's hand goes to her mouth, her eyes wide, and she moves forward, then stops again, shaking. Lavi's heard hints over the years but never gotten the whole picture; Kanda holds his secret close and those who know it respect that, but he knows enough to know that something has happened, something terrible and inevitable, and he thinks the way Lenalee is standing now is very similar to the way Kanda had held himself that first night when he'd taken Lavi back to the library. He pushes himself forward by the wheels of the chair, and it doesn't move nearly fast enough or well enough, cutting into his palms because he's pushing from the wrong angle, but he manages to reach Kanda and carefully reaches out to grip the other man's shoulder.

There's a shudder at his touch and Lenalee gives a squeak.

"Why?" Kanda murmurs, empty and a little broken, and Lavi's not sure if he means why now or why this or just why, but Kanda doesn't elaborate, so instead he just squeezes Kanda's shoulder a little harder.

-x-

He is in Komui's office, and it's the first time he's ever really been nervous in the man's office, even more than when he'd first arrived and "Lavi" had not yet set in, even more than when Komui had gathered them to wish them all luck before the final battle. He's not sure yet what he wants to, should do, from here, but his records are ending and time doesn't care.

Komui sighs slightly and puts down the stack of papers he's reading as Lavi comes to a stop in front of his desk; the chair is easier to use once he'd swallowed his pride and mastered it, and he's too drained and eroded to spend the energy on the appearance the crutches give him, but neither of them gets the chance to speak.

The door bangs open, and Kanda, who has remained resolutely in his room the last few days storms in.

"Send me out," Kanda hisses, slamming his hands down on Komui's desk. "There is no reason not to. Even Moyashi thinks the work will go faster with more people out there." Kanda glares as Komui jumps and gapes and scrambles for a reply.

"Kanda, we don't--" a glance at Lavi, "Allen doesn't—you shouldn't--"

"Be sitting around here when there's things I can do," Kanda growls, eyes flashing and determined. "Let me go. All of those--" and Kanda waves a hand angrily at the stacks of files on Komui's desk, "need to be resolved and there are people here who can do it. You think we're close to finishing this."

_I can help you do it._

_And I can go out there and find some Akuma to fight even if you don't approve my request,_ Kanda's eyes said.

_This is my choice._

_I need to know._

_Let me go._

_I'm seeing this to the end._

"Let me go too," Lavi says suddenly, throat dry, and both Kanda and Komui look at him in surprise. They both look ready to protest, for different reasons, but he stops them when he continues. "For the records. I won't get in your way, Yuu-chan. But the war hasn't completely ended and I still need--" want, oh how he wanted, but that was an emotion and not a reason—"to see." He keeps he gaze steady and firm, and Kanda backs down first with a half-hearted snarl.

"Fine. Just don't get in my way."

Komui looks between the two of them and Lavi sees the same expression he saw on the Supervisor's face that was there before the battle. He wonders how long Komui will carry it even as the man sighs and hands them their files, resigned.

"I'll take care of travel arrangements," the Supervisor calls after them as they leave.

_It's what I can do. So you at least don't have to worry about them._

He thinks he should remember to thank Komui when they get back.

-x-

They are at the inn, a large one just outside town, and the girl who meets them at the door is staring at Kanda as if she's never seen anything like him before. Which she probably hasn't, and there are plenty of nicer people than Kanda for her to meet, but the way she looks as if she'd rather be anywhere but here, the way she never quite looks Kanda in the eyes but can't quite stop gawking, the way she flinches when she does meet his eye but appraises him, calculating, when she doesn't, and the overly loud overly slow way of speaking is annoying even Lavi, who had originally planned only to watch.

Kanda rarely handles the check-in process or directly dealing other people when he's on a mission with others, Lavi realizes. He'd always thought it was just the other man's anti-social personality or that he'd felt such mundane things were a Finder's task, but now he's not so sure.

"Hey," he says with a polite smile for the girl because the two of them are getting nowhere and Kanda's deepening scowl isn't helping. "We're the people the people in the hoods should have told you were coming?"

The girls starts slightly, as if she hadn't realized he was there, then with a look of relief blatantly evident on her face, she instantly turns her best professional smile at him. The room is ready, she says, and the men in hoods will be back later tonight. She can lead the way, and was he injured or sick, some sort of rich young lord coming out to the countryside to recuperate? But the chair hits a bump as he starts to turn it, shifting the blankets enough so it's obvious what they're not hiding and the girl gives a horrified gasp, and logically Lavi knows it's not exactly her fault, but it is very, very hard to find his smile again.

Kanda solves the problem by snatching the keys out of the girl's hand. "Go away," he snarls in clipped, perfect English, and she flees.

-x-

There are only the Akuma left now, and without someone to direct them, they were drawn mindlessly to despair and suffering, like flies or vultures to whatever scraps were available.

Apparently they were also still drawn to the presence of Innocence, twice as strongly, what little of it there was left, and they had barely set their luggage down in the room when the sound of an explosion and screaming met their ears.

Kanda rushed to the window, throwing it open, and cursing loudly at what he saw, quickly jumped out said window and entered the fray, centered relatively luckily in the middle of a field. It was most certainly not the biggest collection of Akuma in an area that Lavi had ever seen, and the appearance of a Level 4 had not been documented since the final battle against the Earl, but without higher direction, it seemed the Akuma became more unpredictable, a frenzied froth relying more on some mechanical intent for destruction and survival without any of the instinct for self-preservation the lower levels sometimes showed. Kanda's attacks were as graceful as ever, like a knife through water, but when a knife goes through water it knows that nothing can stop it, and now something could. It was not obvious at first; Kanda was a skilled if somewhat reckless fighter, but Lavi realized slowly as the Akuma gathered much faster than Kanda could cut them down—_he's not healing_. The bloody tears in his uniform, the cut staining his face even from this distance—and he wondered suddenly how much of Kanda's untiring stamina during battle had also been supported by his healing ability—and the Akuma, which had been gathering but swarming and attacking randomly and individually until now seemed to reach some sort of coherent critical mass, and surrounding Kanda in a scattered formation in the air, they prepared to open fire.

He saw Kanda brace his spine, head thrown back, the posture and expression he was too far away to see clearly but had become much too familiar with in the last half year, but this time Kanda was no longer immune, and he heard himself give a hoarse shout, another plea to join all the ones that had not been answered, felt himself reach, felt _something_ reach, and there was the forgotten feel of air rushing past him, through his hair, this time much faster than he ever remembered feeling it; felt the fire seal forming larger and from a greater distance than he'd ever tried to control it, the symbol burned into his mind like it was an extension of him—and the flames circled, circled around Kanda even as the Hell's Insects exploded into the cloud of Akuma and the Akuma fired on the target at the center of their circle—and the smoke and ashes rose as the explosions went off in a neverending stream and he continued hurtling forward on his hammer towards the center of that destruction, trying to see, trying to breathe.

Kanda isn't standing, he's huddled over himself again, and this time Lavi grabs onto the back of his collar hard even as the hammer deposits him most unceremoniously with a tumble to the ground. He wrenches Kanda around with as much strength as he can without any leverage and shakes him, shakes him hard to stop the shivering of his teeth. It's the second time he's seen Kanda like this, and a year ago he would have simply filed it away as Kanda Yuu actually having a human side, but he's seen it twice now, seen it twice after fighting a war himself and losing, still losing more than he thinks he can take right now, and two times is two times too many. Kanda stares at him blankly for a moment, as if he's wondering what exactly the fuss is about, panting from exertion, a hand pressed to his bleeding side, and Lavi punches him, feels his knuckles crack even as he'd misaimed and most of the force glances off at the wrong angle, and shouts hoarse from too much smoke and wind and fire.

"What the _hell_ were you doing? Do you want to die?!"

And Kanda gapes for a moment like Lavi's sprouted two heads and a tail, then his gaze sharpens, eyes narrowing, ghost of trademark smirk in that flash of teeth.

"I could ask the same of you," he spits, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth.

Climbing to his feet, he winces, slouching, and nods towards the partially extended hammer on the ground. "What are you waiting for? Neither of us are in any condition to fight right now. Let's hope the Akuma in this area are cleaned up."

"There were enough of them to power a small country," he murmurs in reply, enlarging the size of the hammer and clumsily straddling it from where he's sitting on the ground before using it to lever himself up. "That had better have counted for something." Kanda moves to grip the hammer from behind him, and Lavi thinks there's an open expression of agreement on the other's face that he rarely sees. Shifting the handle, he adjusts their direction. Wordlessly, Kanda moves with him, and Lavi feels grounded and oddly calm.

-x-

Komui is simultaneously delighted at their return from the mission and angered by the details of it. Lavi thinks they may be in for their longest lecture yet when Kanda says simply, "I'm in this war to the end. Those were the terms given me." He does not elaborate, but Komui seems to understand, and finally agrees with a sigh.

"And Lavi?" The supervisor turns his attention to him.

"I can still use my hammer," he says steadily, and the knowledge fills him with a strength and contentment that had been missing for much too long. "I can fight long range. Send me out again."

Komui looks resigned, but there's also a pleased expression when he looks at Lavi over his glasses. "We may be able to do something for your mobility, but I'm afraid the situation may not be able to wait. The Akuma may be in their final stage, and they are converging in hotspots of conflict in greater and greater numbers to increase their chances of evolving. I can have another mission ready in a few days, but I want you two to go together." He looks at Lavi when he says this, even as Kanda makes a sound of displeasure and Komui continues with a simple, "You are still injured Kanda-kun, and Lavi is not back to full capacity." He hears Kanda fume for a moment before catching the curt flash of his ponytail as he nods and stalks sharply from the room. He wonders once again if part of the odd arrangements of the last few months have also been planned so Kanda would have someone around to keep an eye on _him_ as well, but while Komui honored the Order's agreement with the Bookman Clan, he was also notoriously good at refusing information which he knew would not be directly included in their records for the actual keeping of history.

"Good luck, Lavi." Komui dismisses him with a kindly and heartfelt smile with too many meanings, and he thinks he does feel a little bit better for it even if Komui is guessing more than he knows.

-x-

They are recovering from the injuries of another mission in Headquarters when it happens. Lavi is sitting, half asleep in the sunlight on the grass of the gardens which are finally starting to slowly grow back when something at the core of him liquidfies and melts, melt into every drop of blood and through every sinew and nerve, warming him from inside out before flowing away like a breeze with a soft farewell in a voice he distantly remembers. He knows what it is, knows that voice though they haven't so spoken directly since after their first meeting, and he opens his eyes, fingers lingering on his empty holster, and watches the sky for a while, feeling empty and completed and abandoned and fulfilled.

It's confirmed by the golem reports that trickle back, and he shares a glance with Lenalee, looking lost and joyous and worried hovering in the corridor.

And then Allen returns, no longer through the Ark, but by train and through the front door from where he'd fittingly freed the last Akuma-trapped soul from its prison, and he smiles tiredly as Lenalee hugs him. Lenalee stiffens as she touches him, brushes his side cautiously, and she lifts her head as if to say something, but she never does, and instead holds him tighter as he rests his head gratefully on hers.

-x-

He meets up with Allen in the infirmary when he goes to get his bandages changed. Allen is smiling politely as always at the many people fretting over him, but there's something more to that smile on top of the layers and layers Mana Walker and Cross Marian and the fourteenth Noah have added. It tinges his eyes and voice knowingly as he raises the stump of his left arm for Lavi to examine.

"You'd think that they would at least leave you an arm and Krory some teeth, but I'm afraid the statistics of happily-ever-afters in all my records would be against even that as well," Lavi offers ruefully, the same layers lingering in his own voice.

"It was needed for that part of me…and I guess now it's not. Mana and Cross and the Fourteenth and Crown Clown and all of you…it gave me myself now that it's time to start over and go on. And we are here." Allen's looking at something beyond Lavi, right hand resting lightly on his left arm, looking at something that Lavi might also see one day, and in a way Allen's always known himself better than anyone else ever did, and Lavi trusts him.

He finds Kanda on the roof of the tower that evening as he'd expected. The other man ignores him as he maneuvers to sit down next to him on the ground, staring steadfastly out towards the night sky, but he raises his own drinking vessel after Lavi's refilled it from the new bottle the redhead brought up.

They sit there a moment, letting the night air move over the roof of the tower, and Lavi knows that Allen and Lenalee and the others will be okay because in the end they were bound more than they would break.

"Are you crying?" he asks after a moment, watching the stars flicker.

There's a pause, long enough for Kanda to be reaching for Mugen, then a soft "che" that cuts most sweetly through the silence.

"Idiot. I'm not drunk enough to cry."

And Lavi smiles.

-x-

"You're leaving, aren't you?" Lenalee asks as she watches him finish writing the last lines in the log from her position in front of the desk.

He looks up, surprised, and almost has to rewrite the page again for the first time in a week.

"You've been dressing more and more as if for traveling the last few weeks. And you haven't been burning pages as often."

He thinks he should have learned long ago never to underestimate Lenalee, and he gives a soft laugh and looks away. "I don't know if I can," he admits, running his fingers over the surface of the desk. "But this—and that--" and he waves at articles scattered on the desk, on the floor, "are all related, and I can't change them"--because he's had a lifetime of that--"but I want to know, want to be the one—be someone writing them down"--and he could still record as long as it was not directly related to the Order even if he might not trust himself with anything which might become too personal at the moment--"because I know how they tie together"--if for no other reason than himself--"it was always bigger than all of us, we were just right in the middle, and now there's the rest of it--"--and he wasn't sure what he could do with them, but the Clan needed accounts even if he might not be able to distance himself enough to make it a proper record, and he didn't really care, because this was his war and he fought in it, grew in it, and it was a part of him, and he deserved that much at least, and there were still so many things happening out there in the world, and he wanted to know about them, wanted to see them faithfully preserved and known to at least someone like the people he had known here, and he was Bookman and he was Lavi, and Lavi was him, and he wouldn't be himself without Lavi, not anymore, any more than he would be himself without Deak or his mentor or Panda or his friends or the forty-seven other names that formed his Bookman through and through.

And Lenalee smiles, understanding and compassionate and wise, with a bit of linger and a hint of regret, and says, "Let us help you."

-x-

They figure out his leg first, and a lighter, more mobile chair for when the strain of using the prosthetic might become too much. Allen's arm takes longer because Komui is a magician of gears and elements and wires of the most stubborn, loyal, devoted, genius sort, and the fingers on Allen's arm will be able to move once Komui's done with it even if Allen can't feel it. Komui promises him a foot that can do the same if he stops by again maybe six months later, and he tries not to think too much about what it might or might not mean if he does. For now, he can walk, and six months later maybe run; but now, again, he can stand and sit and take the stairs and cover the miles and miles of road ahead.

-x-

Nearly everyone is there to send him off, and the situation is so wrong for a Bookman but so right for Lavi, and instead of the usual mental reproach he feels in these situations, he thinks instead that perhaps Lavi had done well.

Nothing surprises him anymore these days he realizes, not even the sight of Kanda at the train station before him, probably having used the distraction of Lavi's departure as a cover to keep his own unannounced one low key. The other man is dressed simply, a traveling pack slung over his shoulder, a short but well-made sword hanging at his side, half hidden by his long coat.

"Where are you going, Yuu-chan?" he asks, not really expecting an answer. He has none himself after all, but now he thinks there might be one somewhere for the rest of them to find.

"I received a message," Kanda says cryptically with the barest tilt of his head so his hair covers the tendrils of tattoo on his neck, and Lavi knows that that's still all he'll get for now, and while it rather nagged at his curiosity that he never did get the whole story of that mark on Kanda's chest, it was comforting that some things in the world hadn't yet changed. He wonders if he'll ever get the story; maybe he will try asking again later, after Kanda's done what he needs to do; maybe he will ask if, if-when, he, they-all, next come by these parts, but the train is coming, so he shrugs and nods and smiles over the noise as he steps in.


End file.
